


the things i left unspoken

by Ponchyo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anorexia, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Dave Strider/ Terezi Pyrope (past) - Freeform, Depression, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Karkat Vantas/Terezi Pyrope (past) - Freeform, Like thats just the default in my head, Lol I almost forgot to tag Dave as trans, M/M, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Realistic Depictions of Mental Illness, Sexual Abuse, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Trans until stated otherwise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-25 18:43:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9838571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponchyo/pseuds/Ponchyo
Summary: Dave has been spiralling down for a long time now, everyone knows this. Now he's found himself in a strange and foreign place after making a mistake. The only thing that could make this more unusual is that Karkat of all people is here with himKarkat and Dave are stuck in a psych ward together.





	1. Chapter 1

You wake up, bleary eyed, feeling like you’re about to wretch everything inside your body. There are lights that are way too fucking bright and you have a moment of sheer terror trying to figure out if the afterlife is genuinely a thing and if you actually managed to wrassle your way into God’s good graces despite being an utter sack of shit.  


Your eyes hurt and you realize quickly that your shades are gone you see the shape of them too the side of you on a bedside table. You grab them and quickly put them on. You relax a little just at how much more tolerable that is.

Then you hear the beeping.

You look to your right and see a bag full of clear fluid hanging on a pole and…there’s an IV needle on the back of your hand. 

Holy fuck. You’re in a hospital. Someone found you. Fuck.

At some point in time indeterminable to you, you downed all of your aunts ambien in one go. You researched what would happen before you did it, you made sure nobody was going to be home (Rose is with Kanaya tonight, Your aunt is at the opera, Roxy and Dirk were at Jake’s house) 

But yet here you are. Alive apparently.

Great. Just fucking great.

You feel yourself beginning to tear up and roll to the side, wincing as you catch the IV and rearrange to accommodate it

Just as you manage to get comfortable you see two people coming towards you, one a nurse holding a styrofoam cup with a bendy straw coming out, and the other someone you definitely don’t want to see right now

She saunters up towards you beside the nurse, a mixture of cold anger and concern

“Hello Dave, I see you’ve woken up? Tell me, how do you feel?” Rose crosses her arms and looks down at you, asking you with a tone you can’t quite place 

“Fine” you say in the best deadpan you can muster but you also feel like you’re about to pass out again or puke all over the place 

“Clearly” she says 

You blink hazily as the nurse comes closer holding out the cup “You’re going to drink this now” she tells you matter of factly 

“Uh…ok? What even is that?” you eye it suspiciously and see its some type of black sludge.

“It’s charcoal” she says handing you the cup firmly. You hold onto it loosely.

“Yeah that’s gonna be a hard pass” you say and lay back down

Rose looks like she’s about to say something when the nurse stares at you with cold hard eyes and says “You drink this or we make you drink this”

You look up at her “And what exactly does that entail ma’am” you didn’t realize until this moment but you’re slurring your words pretty hard and your accent is full on out there which is embarrassing now that you’re living in fucking upstate New York 

She exhales and continues to stare at you. “I think you just want to drink it Dave” you hesitate for a moment before you see her come closer and put a hand on the back of your neck, lifting your head and the cup to your mouth. You try to turn away but she turns your head back towards the cup

“Drink” she says in a firm voice

You feel weak and tired and you just want to die

“Dear God Dave, just drink it. You really aren’t going to be able to get out of this” You hear Rose say 

You groan and start drinking before you gag on the disgusting grainy shit. “Keep going” she says and you just try to chug it as fast as you can to get it over with.

You feel like puking even more now but nothing is coming up, so you turn over and lay on your side trying not to moan in pain

“Ok I’ll leave you two for now, the doctor will be here shortly. Is your mother on her way?” She gets up from the side of your bed, Rose moving to sit down in the chair she just got up from 

Rose answers from beside you “Yes, she texted me a few minutes ago. She’s looking for parking”

“Hmm” you say and turn over to go to sleep and avoid an awkward convo 

There’s a moment of silence before Rose starts talking again

“So I saw you dipped into some of my mother’s liquor before you took all her sleeping pills. Honestly you could have taken the higher quality booze, I assume you weren’t planning to deal with the consequences after all” She examines her fingernails studiously as you let out a sigh

“So I’m guessing you’re kind of pissed off right now?” you say, knowing full well she has every right to be.

“Perhaps a bit. To be honest I don’t quite know what I’m feeling. Overwhelmed? Concerned? Shocked? And yes irritated, considering I’ve asked you several times over the last few months how you were doing and if you were okay, and at any point in time you could have said ‘Rose I’m not doing so well, I’m actually contemplating suicide in fact” 

You sigh “I dunno”

“I was under the assumption we were fairly close. In fact I thought you could tell me nearly anything. But it seems you hid this for a long time considering how planned it seemed. You were clearly sitting on this. And it didn’t even cross your mind to discuss your feelings with me” She continues as she crosses her legs

You shrug “If I tell you I won’t be able to do it. Besides why would you wanna hear about somethin’ like that?” 

She glares at you “No, instead I want to find the body of my cousin dead and lifeless in his bed” 

“Why did you even come home anyway?” You say

She sighs “Kanaya has been stressed as of late, dealing with her own drama, also to be perfectly honest I felt off about how you were acting when I last saw you. It didn’t sit right with me. Clearly I was right”

“So I was that obvious?” you say casually 

“Not exactly, though why that would be bad thing in this situation is lost on me” She says in a sharp tone

Just as she finishes you hear the nurse talking and coming towards you again 

“He’s right in here” She says and you look up, seeing your aunt and freezing.

“Oh thank God you’re okay” She comes up to you and hugs you, squeezing you tight, and you sit there still drugged up as all hell and vaguely uncomfortable. You hadn’t really gotten used to hugs yet. Or physical contact in general.  


She pulls back “What happened? All Rose told me was that you were unresponsive and she called an ambulance”  
You glare at Rose 

“I was too distraught at the time to tell her” She says. You roll your eyes even knowing that may well be the case

“I… uh….” You try but it just won’t come out. The shame is palpable.

Your aunt looks at you for a moment then takes a deep breath letting it out slowly. “Did you do something to hurt yourself Dave” 

You look down at the sheets “Yeah” 

The air hangs with silence for a few long moments before Rose adds “He took all of your ambien and half a bottle of your vodka” 

You turn to her so fast it makes you dizzy “Oh so now you’re not too distraught to say it”

“I have calmed down considerably thank you. Knowing you aren’t going to, I don’t know, die, calms my nerves”  
You throw yourself back into your bed and regret it instantly, moaning as your head throbs and you feel like you’re about to puke

Your aunt looks at you and you can see her eyes watering up, and fuck if that doesn’t make you feel guilty.

“I just hoped things would get better for you two when you moved here. I should have seen this coming” She sniffles 

“Sorry” you say. It’s all you can think to say.

“You’re being awfully short Dave. Are you in a foul mood or is all the sleeping medication?” Rose says

Your aunt immediately replies “Rose! That attitude isn’t helping anyone” 

“Oh really mother? Am I supposed to be completely fine with the fact that he was trying kill himself? That he’d be fine with one of us finding him? You know what I’m going to go get a glass of water I can’t deal with this right now” 

Your aunt sighs and sits down

“It’s okay honey, she’ll calm down”

You nod, feeling yourself getting drowsy again, and before you know it you’ve dozed off

You wake up disoriented and in a room you don’t remember, you’re being shaken by another nurse

“Okay sweetie you have to get up now, we have a bed for you” you blink a few times to try and clear out your blurry vision “What? I’m already in a bed?” 

She chuckles a little bit “No silly, you’re going to our child and adolescent psych unit” 

You hold your breath. You really didn’t think about what would happen if you failed to kill yourself because you didn’t think you would fail. And also you weren’t really familiar with what happened in these types of situations. But it should have occurred to you that you would go to a place like a ‘psych unit’.

You start to sit up and she puts a pair of what look like scrubs that are made out of some type of paper, as well as a red pair of socks with white grips on the bottom and top, on your lap. “Put these on first. Come and get me when you’re done, I’ll be in the nursing station right over there” You look around and realize you’re in a completely different area of the hospital

“Uh, okay” You say and stumble out of bed a little wobbily. 

“Hold onto the rails if you need to” She says and pulls the curtains behind her 

You stumble but find your balance and start to pull your clothes off, taking a few deep breaths (you’d been sleeping in your binder) You look to the side of your bed where you have a rolling side table

You spot a piece of paper and look it over. You see a box checked off

“Has threatened or attempted or are threatening or attempting to cause bodily harm to yourself” You look curiously at the boxes underneath which are unchecked “Has threatened or attempted or are threatening or attempting to cause bodily harm to another person” sure that makes sense, is this just their reasoning for why they think you need to be here or something? 

You look at the third box. “Are showing a lack of competence to care for yourself. Ouch, could’ve been nicer about it dude” Like yeah maybe the person is just not doing good, like you’ve seen guys living on the streets in Houston that clearly had some type of mental health issue and looked like they needed some type of intervention but like you could maybe word it like, I don’t know, has difficulty taking care of themselves? Something like that. If there was a section for that why did you even see people like that? Shouldn’t they be in somewhere like here? What the hell man? 

You pull your paper pants on and look in the mirror and feel even more like you want to die than you already did. Your binder is slightly visible through your paper shirt and, in your opinion you look like a fat disgusting and clearly feminine piece of shit.

You take the blanket off of the bed, draping it over your shoulders and hope it will solve at least some of your problems.

You wander out of the room and to the nursing station and see the nurse as well as your aunt and cousin.  
You go to the nurse, Rose and your Aunt are off to the side talking to some beefy looking security guy  
You hand her the piece of paper “So, uh, what’s this?” She hands it back to you “You need to keep that, it’s your notice of admission” 

You quirk an eyebrow “I…know I’m being admitted?” 

“it’s a formality. It allows us to keep you for 72 hours involuntarily” She waves a hand

“Involuntarily?” You say as you think it

“Yes, you aren’t legally allowed to leave. You weren’t exactly available to talk when we were deciding what should happen, and to be honest we probably wouldn’t have trusted you if you said you were fine to go home”  
You look around and suddenly feel very claustrophobic, she looks at the security guard then back to you. “But you won’t cause us any trouble will you?” She says, motioning him over

Him and your Aunt and cousin come walking over

“Now this is where we have to say goodbye. The unit is all shut down for the night and everyone’s asleep. You’ll be able to visit tomorrow” The nurse is talking to your Aunt.

Rose is holding her arm and your Aunt looks on the brink of tears again. “Okay. We’ll come visit you tomorrow Dave okay? When should we come?” 

“After three, that’s when programming ends” She says, and you have no idea what that means

“Okay” your aunt says and she starts to gather her coat and so does Rose “You be good Dave, I know you will”

This whole scene feels so surreal, They head towards the exit and you follow as far as you can, the nurse opening a set of doors with a card. You hear the doors click and beep behind them 

The security guard comes up behind you

“Ok buddy, follow me” he starts heading the opposite direction and you follow him, looking back as you pass a bunch of rooms, before you get to an elevator. He pushes a button as you get in. You stare awkwardly at the floor.  
The doors open and you find yourself at another heavy looking set of doors. He walks up to a phone on the outside and you follow

“I have Strider with me” he says you hear a muffled “it’s open” before you hear a click and he puts the phone down and opens the door in one fell swoop

You walk hesitantly behind him, shuffling your socks and gripping the blanket still on your shoulders. You look behind you as you pass through the doors.

You hear them click.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationship drama

You wake up to the sound of yelling outside your bedroom door, you try to roll over and ignore it but it is loud as hell and incessant. As you roll over again, a little more awake now, you find the voice familiar, unmistakable in fact.

You jolt up out of bed and walk to your door, peeking out ever so slightly and.. it’s him. Oh fuck its him. Karkat Vantas, Kanaya’s best friend, the perpetually grumpy guy. But not like this. He’s just shouting incoherently at the nurses who’ve already made a move to hold him back. You see a nurse rush back into the glass enclosed station and head to the phone before coming back out to help, and shortly after you hear the overhead speaker

“Code White, Floor two, CAIP unit. Code White, Floor Two, CAIP unit” a very calm feminine voice repeats

The nurses try to restrain him but he’s putting up a good fight. You see a flood of different people come rushing onto the unit including about six security guards. They get in there first, grabbing him and tackling him to the floor as he starts just screaming and flailing all over the place. They pick him up as another staff (you wonder briefly why she rushed into a hostile situation with a lanyard around her neck, that’s just asking for trouble) brings a stretcher and several of what look like long belts.

They put him on the stretcher and take the belt things, tying them around him and tightening them. They put about 4 on him when the security guards look at each other and one says “That should hold him”

They wheel him down to the end of the hall and you can still faintly hear him screaming. 

The nurse turns around and looks at you. “You should get a little more sleep, there’s still a couple more hours before breakfast and group” you blink, then nod quickly and close the door. 

That was a surreal experience, you think to yourself  
You think of the first time you met him, in the cafeteria on your first day of school in New York. You were sitting with Rose and her girlfriend Kanaya. You were in that awkward place of moving to a new place and not knowing anyone, except luckily you had a cousin in the same grade as you. 

You were kind of just sitting there drinking a coke zero non chalantly trying to let them do their own thing, when you see this angry short little troll come stomping down towards you and landing at your table. 

“Kanaya! You would not believe the shit they are trying to serve in this cafeteria! It’s like they don’t even care that trolls go to this school! How are we supposed to get any nutrition when they feed us this garbage! Like thank you very much you inconsiderate grub fuckers now I’m probably going to get food poisoning again! And it’s not like my good for nothing group home will make me anything when I qualify for the free lunch program, dollar hungry shit eating bastards” 

You’re looking at Karkat more closely. He’s short, maybe 5”3?. He ‘s a little chubby in the way a certain site on the Internet might describe as thick and he has tiny little nubs of horns that look like candy corn to your uncultured eyes (not that you haven’t seen trolls, there’s plenty of them in Houston) and the first thing your mind thinks in this assessment is ‘cute???’ before you banish that into the Island of Bad Thoughts, where the bad thoughts go. The next thing you think is ‘this guy has no chill in his body ‘ and on the same thought ‘what a tool’  
You sit there staring at this guy blankly, sipping on the straw to your can of pop when he turns towards you.

“And who’s this asshole wearing sunglasses inside. Who the bulgesucking fuck wears sunglasses inside?!” 

“I’m photosensitive, they protect my retinas” you say on reflex. He simply stares at you in response

Kanaya sighs “Karkat, I informed you Rose’s cousins were going to be coming to live with her. This is Dave he will be sitting with us from now own. Now please introduce yourself” 

He rolls his eyes and sighs but complies “My name is Karkat. It’s…nice to meet you” he’s looking at you pretty intensely, furrowing his eyebrows in contemplation before sitting down. 

He mostly ignores you for the lunch period and you go your separate ways, before finding out he was in your last period English class. Again he mostly ignored you.  
He seemed like this strange little troll you ultimately didn’t have to care about.

Then, a few months later, you ran yourself into a little bit of Girl Drama. Not the drama girls tend to involve themselves in, but the drama of two dudes sharing interest in a girl, which isn’t really your bag, considering you’re of the opinion that girls don’t like assholes being territorial over them. And yet you found yourself knee deep in it.

You were at Kanaya’s Autumn party. Whatever that was, too early for Halloween? Who knows? There weren’t too many people there but you still went over to the corner to be alone. You love to be alone because people honestly put you on edge and you’re terrified of people judging you and thinking you’re a loser, but you hate to be alone because you crave attention and human interaction. Your fears won out this time despite the fact that you were looking forward to going to an honest to God party. Oh well.

You were leaning against the fireplace drinking a glass of diet gingerale when this troll girl wearing red sunglasses and using a cane walked towards you, you look at her cane and immediately move out of her way, don’t want to be rude to a blind girl. She takes a big sniff of the air around you.

“Something over here smells cool, could it be the guy who’s leaning against the wall not talking to anyone?”

“Probably” you shoot back, never one to skip a beat. She laughs and moves over so she’s right up next to you. “So where did you come from cool kid?” 

“Houston, moved in with my cousin after some family drama and now I’m pretty much just here”

She just smiles at you for a minute before saying “I’m Terezi, who are you?” She puts her hand on your shoulder as she says it

You look over at the other side of the table where you see your brother and your older cousin talking to the guy Roxy has literally been trying to hook Dirk up with for years. Dirk looks over at you, red solo cup in his hand, and actually smirks, giving you a thumbs up from across the room.

You shrug your shoulders and look back at Terezi, thanking every possible God in existence that the girl you were talking to was blind and couldn’t see that. 

“I’m Dave, Roses cousin” she laughs again 

“Makes sense, you smell similar” 

You try to shrug off how creepy that sounds and look around

You see Karkat standing around the corner talking to Kanaya and Rose as well as some other guy you don’t recognize who’s clearly got the weed, like holy shit that guy looks baked. 

He’s frowning at you, and you briefly wonder what his problem is before you just accept that that Karkat is always angry. You get yourself back to talking with Terezi

A few minutes later Rose, Kanaya and Karkat come over. 

“Hello Dave, I see you’ve made a friend” Rose starts 

There’s a moment of both her and Kanaya giving you looks you don’t understand. Hers amused and Kanaya’s concerned

“Ha yeah” you look over at Terezi and ask “So why haven’t I seen you around at school?” 

Before she can answer Karkat answers “She goes to the New York State School for the Blind dumbass” 

You find him especially prickly and douchey tonight but you let it go. Terezi answers instead “Yeah it’s an hour ride there so I have to wake up early every morning , it’s awful” she laughs again

You laugh too, mostly because she’s laughing and it’s contagious. Karkat is glaring at you.

Rose takes you by the arm, a little unsteady on her feet and leads you to the kitchen

“My my, you and Terezi? How scandalous” She says. You sigh “Rose have you been drinking?” 

She shushes you 

“We’ll have to be cautious. Roxy and Dirk are chaperoning, and they probably won’t take too kindly to this” before you ask her what the hell she’s talking about she pulls out a mickey of rum. “Uh ok, what are you doing?” you ask as she takes your half empty cup and fills it with rum.

“You’re so stiff Dave, this is a party. I think you should relax” she says a little less eloquently than usual. You look back and see the three trolls heading towards you.  
Kanaya looks back at her girlfriend and you can just tell that someone is sleeping on the couch tonight, metaphorically, y’all are still kids. 

“Rose I was under the impression from our previous conversation we were not doing that” 

Rose grins mischievously and takes out three cups. “Well I changed my mind. We should have fun” You grimace as you drink it

Two hours later you’re sitting on the couch making out with Terezi. It kind of just happened, she was looking at you and you were looking at her and bam. You felt pretty confident about how you were doing, you didn’t exactly have any practice with anyone your own age (Bad Thought) But you were pretty solidly rocking it right now.  
Then you saw Karkat glaring at you about 20 times more intensely than before, which you honestly thought was impossible, kudos to him. You separated your mouth from hers, getting daring and putting your sweaty hands on her hips. “I’m going to go get another drink you want anything” you ask

She giggles “I think you’ve had enough coolkid” You grip her hips and lean in “”Nah, I’m not nowhere near done yet” She laughs again harder leaning into your ear “You’re so sexy when you talk like this” she puts a hand on your thigh, right next to…where your dick should be. You feel all the heat in your body rise to your face and you get up, as casually as you could make it seem and stumble up. “Ok I’ll be back soon” she smiles, as if your reaction amused her.

You go to the kitchen . When you look back, Karkat is there

“Okay look you pompous ass I’m only going to tell you this once, stay away from Terezi. You hear me”

You turn back and raise an eyebrow at him “Dude, really? Are you her bodyguard or something?” 

“No you nook licking squawk beast, I am not her bodyguard, her relationship to me is none of your fucking business! I am simply telling you to leave her the fuck alone! She isn’t interested! You think you can come in here all fucking mysterious and just start creepily hitting on any girl you want? You think you can just do whatever you want to her? She’s drunk and you’re taking advantage of her! You arrogant self entitled bulge fucking pan-deficit douchebag!” 

You look at him first a moment before stepping closer “Dude she doesn’t need your white knight efforts. You call me creepy? You’ve been staring at her all night. Also she started hitting on me, not the other way around. Also I’m about 99% sure I’m the one who’s drunk cause she sure don’t look as drunk as I am”

He starts trying to inch closer to you “You don’t know what the flying fuck you’re talking about Strider” you’re not especially intimidated by him, in fact you find this whole situation funny

What’s less funny is when you hear your brothers no bullshit voice piercing your eardrums 

“Alright break it up. Jesus Christ we leave you kids alone for a goddamn hour and you get wasted on us” Dirk has a hand on both of your chests. 

“Fine. I’m going to go get Kanaya” Karkat storms off and you stand there

You look back at Dirk. “I feel like shit, can you take me home?" He looks at you for a second with that blank penetrating stare that says he’s trying to figure you out. You’d never tell him but it really reminds you of…him. It would really mess him up if you told him that.

“Sure I’ll get the keys. Have fun explaining why you’re drunk if she wakes up though”

You’re in the passenger seat next to him and he starts the conversation, which was weird. “So you got a little action tonight I hear?” he says “You know I’m happy for you little man, even if that girl seemed weird as all hell"

You lean your head against the window, your skull pounding, and you feel like crying for some reason “Dirk?” you say. He looks over at you curiously, “What is it?” You sink down into the leather chair “Do you think there’s ever going to be a girl who will actually want to be with me even knowing I’m not a real guy” 

He frowns “Dave there is so much messed up with what you said. One, you are a real guy, two, of course there’s going to be a girl who doesn’t care that you’re trans, there’s tons of girls that are fine with that, trust me”

You moan “What? And you know with your personal experience of being both cis and gay?” 

He shakes his head “You know what, I’m friends with girls. I talk about boys with girls all the time. You don’t have anything to worry about. You only feel this way because you got drunk”

“I’ve never even kissed a girl before Dirk” you say quietly. He sighs “Yeah I know that. Look you just need a good night’s sleep okay” 

He knows damn well you don’t sleep and you know damn well he doesn’t either

You somehow sink even further. “Okay” 

You realize that line of thought got away from you, remembering that night isn’t sad but for some reason it’s making you emotional, fuck it you’re crying again

You try to get back to sleep, surprisingly successfully, probably thanks all the ambien you took yesterday.  
At around 8:30 a nurse comes into your room and turns on the light

“Good morning Dave. My name is Amy and I’ll be your nurse today. Here’s your breakfast, just so you know the trays come at 8:00 in the morning for breakfast, 12:30 for lunch, and 5:00 for dinner. They’re right outside the nurses station when they arrive. The unit schedule is posted outside on the whiteboard. Check In group is at 9:00, so go to the common area when you’re done eating. If you need anything just ask me, okay?”

You nod slowly, yawning

She goes back into the hall and grabs a machine  
“Ok I’m just going to take your blood pressure and temperature now”

She takes your arm and puts a cuff around it. You sit awkwardly trying to cover up your chest with the blankets, your binder not on yet

The cuff tightens and she puts a thermometer under your tongue

She looks at you closely packing up the machine

“Good. I’ll come talk to you later” she leaves your room  
You pick at your breakfast, eating the low fat yogurt that came with it, taking the packet of jam and putting it on your desk next your bed.

You put your binder back on then cautiously walk out onto the ward, going to the main room.

There’s a tall blonde woman there. She reminds you of your aunt but she looks more wholesome, she has a crucifix around her neck so she’s probably one of those Jesus types.

You sit down 

She looks at you then makes a mark on her clipboard “Okay I think that’s everybody…I just need to check…” she walks over to the nursing station “Hey Jill, is Karkat coming?” 

“No Stacy, we put him down for a while” the nurse calls back 

The blonde woman shakes her head “Well hopefully he’s back up for Recreation group, I brought in oragami”

Apparently check in group is where you tell them how exactly you’re feeling, on a scale of one to ten. You put yourself at a solid three.

You were there with about five other kids and one carapace. He didn’t really talk much of English, which is to say none at all, but he wrote down that he was feeling like a five.

There wasn’t anything else until lunch, which you took back to your room. Didn’t eat any of it, it smelled disgusting. 

That was when your nurse came back. 

“Ok Dave I want you to come with me” you shrugged 

“Ok, what for?” 

“I’m just going to quick weigh you” 

You pause “Uh, okay sure” 

You walk out of the room, following her closely,  
apprehensively 

As you exit the room you see Karkat again, standing outside the nursing station, this time looking way more chill. Like too chill. His movements are like slow motion. Yet still, he sways back and forth in a rhythmic motion.  
He turns and briefly looks at you as you pass. Then does a double take and looks back.

You think about saying “Hey Karkat” but you feel like that would just make the situation worse

He doesn’t try to say hi or anything either he just stares at you like he’s seen a ghost then starts wandering away. You can hear his nurse call after him as you step into a room halfway down the hall of rooms, on the opposite side. 

“Okay Dave, I’m just going to ask you to do a few things first” Amy says as she opens the door to the room and you step inside. 

“Sure?” you don’t really know what she could be asking you to do, didn’t she say she was going to weigh you? Now you’re very conscious of the fact that she could do anything to you now and nobody would believe you because you’re fucking crazy

“I’m going to get you to take that blanket off and go to the bathroom” 

You blink “What?” 

“There’s a bathroom right here, I need you to pee. I’ll stand outside and wait”

“Uh, excuse me if this sounds rude but what possible purpose could that serve” you say, crossing your arms and staring directly at her

She smiles at you 

“We just need an accurate representation of your weight”

“I’ve never had to do this before” You only just recently got weighed at the doctors office. Not only did you not have to take a fucking piss first with somebody listening to you, you know your weight is fine and you don’t know why she’s so fucking concerned. In fact your doctor complimented you on your weight. You still feel like you’re chubby, but it’s not medically bad apparently.

“Dave, please just cooperate. It’s part of our assessment process” you roll your eyes but get into the bathroom and piss, which is really difficult considering she’s right outside. 

When you go back into the first room she takes the blanket off of your shoulders and directs you towards the scale, you start to get on when she says, “turn around” you pause, confused, but do it anyway.  
You’d rather know what your weight is, it’s been a couple of days since you were last able to weigh yourself

She sits you down and does your blood pressure again, this time facing the monitor away from you, which you don’t really get or care about. She puts a clip on your finger to check your pulse too

“I know this is a delicate question, given your situation” you know before she even asks what she’s talking about “how regular are your periods?”

You pause “I’m on hormone blockers and a low dose of testosterone, I don’t get those anymore” you say

She nods, flipping through your chart “Right, it’s right here. Were they regular before you got the implant?” 

“Not really” you say

“And when did you get it?” She asks. “My period or the implant?” you ask 

“Both. Stand up please” she says. You don’t like standing up abruptly because it makes you dizzy but you listen to her

She catches you when you start to fall over, looking back between the monitor and you

The rest of the “assessment” goes over fine, you don’t know what the point of it even was and head back to the common area. 

“Dave?” you see an older brown man come up to you  
“Uh, yeah that’s me” 

“I’m Dr. Ahmed, I’m going to be your psychiatrist. Would you mind talking to me for a moment?”

You shrug “Sure”

“Great, let’s head over to your room” 

He seems like a really nice guy, you get good vibes from him

You walk into your room and sit on the bed. He sits in the chair across from you

“So my first question is this. How long have you been feeling suicidal?”

You blink. That’s…not an easy question to answer 

“Well uh, I don’t know man like, it’s hard to say? Like I don’t know, my aunt probably told you about where I grew up and everything and like I feel like that just does things to you? Like I started thinking ‘you know what it would all just be a lot easier if I were dead’ a long time ago but I could never do it you know, I never had the guts. And then I went to live with my aunt, which, only made me feel worse. Like you get used to being in danger and then you’re expected to live this normal life, and frankly it’s fucking awful, nobody understands, and I feel like nobody will ever understand and I just want to die!”

He nods. “You’re an anxious person, aren’t you Dave?” he says 

You shrug “Yeah I guess, I get stressed out a lot” 

He nods. “You mentioned bad things that have happened to you. I know about some of those things. Do you think about them a lot?” you sigh “I try really hard not to” he makes a hmm sound 

“Do you feel sad?” he asks. You take a second to think about that. “It’s more like I don’t feel anything” he nods again

“What do you do for fun?” he asks. You shrug again “I dunno. I used to make comics in MS paint but I don’t really do that even anymore” 

“Hmm”

He flips over the piece of paper you didn’t even realize he was writing on

“So, your nurse tells me you’re pretty small” you blink. “I don’t know I’m actually pretty tall, I had this growth spurt on testosterone and now I’m like 5”7” 

He shakes his head “I’m talking about your weight” he says. You pause “Oh”

“What do you think about your weight Dave?” He asks.

“I don’t know. It could be lower” 

“Do you think it’s healthy for a 15 year old boy to weigh less than a hundred pounds?” 

You shrug “My family doctor said it was okay” 

Dr. Ahmed sighs “He was misinformed. You are in fact very malnourished. Tell me , how much do you eat in a typical day?” 

You frown and pull your knees up to your chest “I don’t know I don’t keep track” 

He looks at you for a moment, as if he just knows you’re lying and moves on.

“Okay. Well let me tell you what I’m thinking. I’m going to diagnose you with a few things I think help explain what’s going on here and put you on some medications to try and help you, are you sleeping well?” 

You shake your head. “I got terrible insomnia dude” 

He nods “Ok well, I believe you have major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and anorexia nervosa. I’m putting you on 25 milligrams or Seroquel to sleep as well as 40 milligrams of Prozac to start off. We’re going to be monitoring your intake and weight. I won’t discharge you until you’re what I consider stable. Ok it was nice talking to you Dave. I’ll see you tomorrow” 

He walks out before you can say anything

“What the fuck?” you say to yourself out loud. The other stuff didn’t surprise you. You were happy to be on a sleeping medication finally. But…anorexia? Like fucking hell 

You go outside to the common area, and lo and behold, there he is again. He’s talking on the phone this time.

“Kanaya, what the hell?! You will not guess who the fuck is in here with me. It’s like God is personally punishing me. Yes that’s exactly what’s happening. This is divine punishment specifically tailored for me. My whole world is being designed for torment, first they bring me back to this hell hole, then they sedate to fucking hell and back, and then I find this asshole in here with me. God fucking damn it what have I done to be punished this way?!”

You’re still in a state of shock , so you don’t really know what you’re doing when you move over towards him and say “man I’m not that bad”

He literally screams “ahhhhhhhhh fucking hell what do you want!” 

A nurse comes out from behind the glass.”Karkat, step back. Do you need an Ativan?” 

He spits out “No! I’ve had enough today thank you!”

You felt honestly kind of shitty you’re causing this much discomfort for him. Like yeah you feel kind of awkward being here with him, but he seems genuinely upset by it, like on a massive scale. But then again…he doesn’t exactly seem like himself right now

“Like, it’s awkward being here with someone you know, and like, we didn’t exactly get off to the best start…”  
He snorts “Oh really?” 

“Dude like I’m sorry that my presence is literally punishment or whatever, like that really makes me feel good about myself, like shit we’re both here for a reason” 

He sighs “Okay, yeah, I might very overreacted. But it’s not so much you personally as a general consensus that I’m being punished, now that I think about it you being here isn’t that bad, like at least someone I know is in here with me. Even if that someone is a douchebag” he’s more talking to himself than he is to you

You sit down on the couch. “Wanna watch TV?” 

He stares at you for a second 

“I’ll go get the remote from the nurses”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flashbacks building up to the present take up a lot of this, and will continue to for most chapters. But psych ward stuff is still a major part of the story

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few chapters written already but I'll space them out, I've been uncertain about posting this for a long time because it feels deeply personal to write about these topics but I hope that you all enjoy this :)


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